"Deep in my heart, I know there’s no promise I’ll be free from trouble in this life. In fact, I’m usually either getting out of trouble, currently in trouble, or about to meet trouble around the next corner."...... I hope you'll stick around for my "Lucille Ball/Gracie Allen" adventures. It promises to be a wild ride.

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Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Finding Lily by Lisa D. Ellis (Giveaway, Guest Post)

I would like to welcome Lisa D. Ellis. She has written a guest post for our enjoyment and is giving away a copy of her book 'Finding Lily'.

When her newborn baby Lily dies suddenly, Claire Edwards runs away to live in a lighthouse she had fallen in love with as a young child. The lighthouse is reputed by some to have magical powers, but Claire isn't looking for a miracle. She just wants an escape from her husband Jim's colder way of grieving, and from their apartment filled with the tiny clothes and stuffed animals they had collected over the past few months. But once Claire is situated in the lighthouse, it begins to illuminate things for her in a new way and she's suddenly forced to rethink her views on life, death, and her marriage.

I’ve always loved to read. As a child,
I quickly discovered that books were my ticket to different cultures, different
periods of time, and even different families. I loved how I could step in and
out of these experiences with just a flick of my wrist, opening and closing my
favorite books whenever I chose, then returning to the safety of my own world
with its familiar pink walls and my chenille bedspread. Yet even while I slept, images from the
storylines still danced in my head.

Over time, reading also fueled my own
desire to write. I began crafting short vignettes and quickly progressed to
short stories, loving the brevity and neatness of the short form. I liked how I
had enough space to explore ideas and situations that interested me, but always
with an eye on the inevitable resolution. I enjoyed tying everything up neatly
by the time I reached that last, always satisfying, sentence.

It wasn’t until I was a young adult
and attended a summer writing program at Columbia University that I felt an
urge to stretch myself further by writing my own novel. I attended a seminar
with my fellow writing students that featured representatives from some of
NYC’s top publishers and literary agents and listened raptly as one of the speakers
talked about how every writer has to find his or her own “novel idea.” This
concept intrigued me. Even with all of the reading I did, I had never thought
about a novel idea, or what mine might look like, or how it would progress.
Once the idea settled inside me, though, I couldn’t shake it. The seeds began
to grow and I started to view the world differently, now looking for hints or
signs of what I should write about in the longer novel form, and why, and what
I might learn in the process.

Around this same time period, I
frequently visited Nantucket Island. It was only a two-hour ferry ride from my
Boston apartment and offered a tranquil alternative to the dusty summer in the
city and the slow, humid air that was hard to shake. It was so easy to leave this
behind and embrace Nantucket’s cool, crisp air, the water so blue it was almost
navy, and the sweet scent of roses and hydrangea that lingered everywhere.

I had also fallen in love with a
charming little lighthouse, called the Brant Point Lighthouse, which perched
right on the edge of the tiny Brant Point Beach. From the deck of the ferry, I
loved to watch the lighthouse grow and expand into sight as we neared the
island; then two or three days later I would watch it recede as the ferry
pulled away from the wharf, taking me back to my city life. I daydreamed about
what the inside of the lighthouse would look like, and who might live there,
and why. In true writer’s form, I wasn’t concerned with the reality that the
dimensions of the miniscule lighthouse were actually way too small for anyone
to live in, or that the lighthouse was automated. Using my creative powers, I
expanded the size of the lighthouse in my mind and added a house attached to
the light tower, then set about figuring out who would live there and why. This
was the birth of FINDING LILY—my novel idea—and of Claire, whom I like to think
of as my other, less practical half who spends more time floating in her mind
than anchored in her body.

As I began to explore Claire’s
character and motivation, I found myself drawn to her relationship with her
husband Jim. I was casually dating someone at this time and was constantly
challenged by our different emotional styles and the way we approached the
world—he with his head and me with my heart—and I wanted to better understand
these differences and what they would mean in the course of a marriage and how
they would stand up in the real world. While my real relationship ultimately
didn’t progress any further, with the characters of Claire and Jim, I had the
luxury of taking things to the next step. I also had the chance to see how
these emotional differences, which are what drew Claire and Jim together
initially, also threatened to tear them apart as they tried to carve out a life
together. Claire and Jim’s relationship also inevitably led to the creation of
Lily. Of course without her, and without the significant role she plays as the
main catalyst for everything else, the rest of the book couldn’t have happened.Once all of the pieces came together,
I began to write and write and write.… The words just flowed and the storyline gracefully
unfolded on its own accord. In true Claire fashion, I like to think that perhaps
Lily was guiding me to the final resolution. Along the way, I discovered that
novels don’t end quite as neatly as my short stories once had, but I also found
that the journey of writing a novel, as well as of reading one, can also be
much more satisfying. And like Claire, I discovered that Lily might just be
everywhere.

* * *

If you would like to win a copy of 'Finding Lily', leave a comment with your name and email. Event open until May 30th.

Disclaimer/Disclosure.
I received a complimentary copy of this book with no obligation for a
positive review. No compensation – monetary or in kind – has been obtained
for this post. Cover
art, book description, and any excerpts are courtesy of the author,
publisher, or PR firm. The
views, beliefs, and opinions expressed by guest post authors are their own
and do not necessarily reflect the views, beliefs, or opinions of My Life.
One Story at a Time.

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Life. One Story at a Time. is an advertising affiliate with Amazon, a small
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